


"Worked Themselves To Exhaustion"

by AspiringAuthor29



Series: Bad Things Happen To Spencer Reid Bingo [5]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: (Not really but he should be), Exhaustion, Gen, Hotch means well but he's kind of oblivious, Insomnia, Low Blood Sugar, Morgan is the best big brother, Passing Out, Spencer Reid Has Self-Esteem Issues, Spencer Reid is a Rossi, Spencer feel like a little kid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29249565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AspiringAuthor29/pseuds/AspiringAuthor29
Summary: Reid really should have seen it coming. It was only natural when you don't eat or sleep for days on end.
Relationships: Derek Morgan & Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid & David Rossi
Series: Bad Things Happen To Spencer Reid Bingo [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2003854
Comments: 14
Kudos: 130





	"Worked Themselves To Exhaustion"

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! So it's been a while, but I'm back now. I know that this is such an overused trope, but I really do believe this is something Reid would have done, especially earlier on when he felt like he had something to prove. I hope you enjoy anyway and don't for get to leave a comment!

In hindsight, someone really should have seen it coming.

Seeing as Reid wasn't exactly the self-preserving type and it was shamefully easy for the team to become so amazed by his brain that they momentarily forgot he wasn't superhuman, it was actually a wonder it hadn't happened sooner. He couldn't run off of empty, but either he didn't know that, or he just chose to ignore it since he was so keen on pleasing every person he came across.

Everyone on the team loved him just as they did everyone else in their little family, Hotch and Rossi like fathers, JJ like a mother, Morgan and Prentiss like an adorably prankable little brother, and Garcia, well, Garcia just loved him. And he loved each and every one of them back unconditionally, which being the hesitant kid he was and having such a yearn to be loved and to be approved of, it really shouldn't have been a surprise when he collapsed into Morgan's arms in the middle of the conference room.

0000

Was one good night of sleep really too much to ask? If it wasn't the nightmares plaguing his blissful hours of peace, it was his own memory that constantly chased after him with images of their latest cases that would never fade to the back of his mind, never lose the tiny details that only his eidetic memory could catalogue. The most recent night however, had been neither. Instead, it had been a bout of insomnia that sporadically popped up and he would just have to add to list of "Things that make Spencer Reid a freak".

That's why he drank so much coffee filled with more sugar than liquid. He figured the team believed it was because he actually _enjoyed_ consuming the unhealthy amount of caffeine on a daily basis. In reality, coffee was the only thing that kept him going most days. Generally, he was literally running on empty five out of seven days of the week, but it was rare that the weekends even offered him any sort of rest. It was getting to the point where food even turned his stomach, and he couldn't eat. If a member of the team questioned it, he would simply say that he'd eat a good meal that night and end up eating a granola bar if he were lucky.

As a genius, he figured he should know better. It was just that everyone else on the team seemed to do just fine, all had ways of dealing with what they saw during work hours and while everyone seemed to think he had an outlet too, it was the exact opposite. His brain never shut down. His stupid memory just played the images and scenes over and over again in his head like a broken projector until all he wanted to do was knock himself unconscious because maybe, just maybe, that would make everything stop.

He never told anyone of course. They all thought he dealt in his own way, so why should he tell them and give them yet another reason to see him as nothing but some weak kid who couldn't handle working with all of the big FBI agents?

So, he trudged on and acted like everything was okay, did everything they needed him to, let them use his brain to their expense. It didn't matter. His brain was the only reason they kept him around anyway, he might as well let them get full use. It didn't matter how he felt, as long as they got the job done and everyone felt good about it.

He walked into the bullpen Monday morning and JJ announced that they had a case before he even had time to set his messenger bag down. The presentation was short and sweet, or as sweet as a case centering around an Unsub who thought they were Thanatos, the Greek god of death, and went around killing people who' time they deemed had expired can get. It was a local case too, which meant they would be working from Quantico. Not that being in his own bed or a hotel one would matter; either way he wouldn't be able to sleep.

So, he spent all day travelling around with members of the team, interviewing the few witnesses they had, talking to victim's family members, mulling over facts on the case until his brain felt like it was trying to escape through his eyes and he was sure a "System Overload" message would pop up in front of his vision at any moment.

He pushed through it however, not even bothering to swallow some aspirin. He was exhausted, both physically and mentally, and knew they were far from solving the case. He hadn't slept a minute in over twenty-four hours, and though he had gone much longer in the past, it didn't make trying to work and catch a killer any easier. Besides, everyone on the team was tired, so he would only seem like more of a baby for bringing it up.

Eventually, their work brought them to an old warehouse owned by an older man who had died over a year prior. Inside, they found ten totes full of journals, each being hundreds of pages long and completely filled out with detailed descriptions of every person this "Thanatos" had killed, and hundreds they planned on. All in all, there had to be over two hundred journals, totaling in over two million words.

The journals were their only clue to catching their killer, not to mention they would tell them who their next victims were. The main problem: The Unsub had written every word in Greek. Since that wasn't a language Reid spoke fluently, each book had to translated in a program Garcia had created specifically for the books before he could even read them. Hotch said they needed to get the journals read as soon as possible, by they he obviously meant Reid since he was the only one who could get through them without it taking a whole year, but he had also sent everyone home to rest, saying that they were no good to the future victims if they were burnt out and weren't on the top of their game.

Reid had no intentions of going home. Sleep was a word he barely had in his vocabulary and Hotch _had_ said the journals needed to be read as soon as possible. Well, wasn't right then as soon as possible? When he had told them to go home and get rest, he surely hadn't meant him too. The team needed his brain to save lives, more than he needed sleep, or food for that matter.

He ended up staying all night, telling the team that he would go home an get some rest as soon as he finished up one thing. It wasn't a total lie, really. Reading the journals really were only one thing collectively. If by some small miracle he managed to finish all of them by morning and actually had time to go back to his apartment, he would. Most likely though, he would end up getting a change of clothes from his go-bag and brushing his teeth in the bullpen bathroom. At least then it would hopefully ward off too much suspicion amongst his colleagues.

And he did just that. He managed to finish translating and reading every volume around six in the morning, leaving him just enough time to freshen up and grab another coffee, how many that was he had lost track of a long time ago. He sat back down at his desk and began skimming a file for another case he had been asked to consult on right as the rest of the team arrived.

"Hey Pretty Boy, getting an early start?" Morgan said with a mega-watt grin, the night's rest seemingly putting the pep back in his usual step, though the genius highly doubted that Morgan had been _sleeping_ to make him so chipper.

Spencer just nodded and continued to run his fingers down the different reports in his file. He tuned out Morgan's laugh and barely managed to respond to the rest of his team's greetings. When Hotch called them all into the conference room later on in the day, he found his mind having to work overtime in order to simply get his body to move like a body was supposed to. Though he thought he surely looked like an exhausted robot, the rest of the team either didn't notice or didn't care enough to address it.

 _Just Reid being childish, weak Reid again_ he could just imagine them thinking. He needed to grow up and push through it. So, even though he felt like he could very well fall asleep right on all the murder-scene photos, he forced himself to at least act like he was paying attention to what Hotch was telling them.

He only picked up on the gist of what Hotch was saying. Something about "body found", "river", and "victim matched the Unsub's profile". He figured the rest out for himself, though considerably slower than the usual warp speed his brain worked on. He figured that in its current state, his brain wasn't even functioning at the level of someone with a normal IQ. Their Unsub had supposedly committed suicide by drowning in some river somewhere. The victim matched their profile to a tee and the director was officially calling the case "closed".

Reid couldn't even bring himself to be excited at the prospect of such an easy let off when a case was really just starting to pick up. Usually, he would have actually been disappointed since that meant no more puzzles and figuring out the intricate innerworkings of each person's unique mind. But then, he was utterly exhausted and still had a ton of paperwork to do which he had neglected since he was a bit preoccupied with, you know, _staying awake_.

The team disbanded, all heading off to their allotted desk or office to hopefully catch up on work or just sit back and relax for once. Spencer followed suit, somehow managing to get his feet to obey his mind and carry him to his desk where he almost robotically sat down and began writing in the first file he picked up. After only a moment though, he began to realize that he had absolutely no idea what he was writing or even what he was supposed to be writing about, the words and diagrams all turning into one sickening blur in his vision.

He sat back and stretched, massaging across his eyes and the bridge of his nose with two fingers. He sighed quietly and then immediately gazed around the bullpen, hoping no one had heard him. If they did, he fully and truly believed that he was too worn out to effectively convince a normal person he could still work, let alone a profiler who analyzed the tiniest things of human behavior as their 9-5 job. To his relief, both Emily and Morgan were fully engrossed in whatever they were doing on their computers.

With yet another sigh, though this one softer and less of exhaustion and more of resignation. The reports _had_ to be turned in by the time he left. They weren't necessarily due until the weekend, but he really didn't like having stuff hanging over his head. So, in his book, they very much were due by that evening.

With a quick sip of coffee that had long ago gone cold, he turned his attention back to the work in front of him and began to tiredly plow through it.

0000

Spencer didn't realize he had been working so long until Hotch came over to his desk and set another file down. He was so in the zone that the light noise of the paper settling onto his desk actually caused him to jump.

"Sorry," Hotch muttered distractedly, glancing at his watch the same moment Reid looked at the time displayed in the corner of his computer screen. 6:37. Had he really been working for nearly three hours? It hadn't felt like nearly that long.

He surveyed the file Hotch had sat down and tilted his head up to gaze at the elder man. "Could you draw up a geographical profile and a quick analysis on it before you leave? Sorry it's so late, but this just came through. You're the best geographical profiler we have, and the Phoenix field office needs this by midnight. It shouldn't take you too long."

Reid wanted to say no, he wanted to so badly, but the need to prove himself, to show Hotch and the rest of the team that he wasn't a child, kept him from doing so. He wanted to show that he was just as good an agent as all the others that got the privilege of walking around Quantico. Oh, but he was so tired.

He didn't even realize he had nodded in agreement until Hotch was quickly thanking him once again and muttering something about having a parent-teacher conference for Jack he had to get to and hurrying out the doors. Reid gazed after him as he disappeared, half jealous and half just too exhausted to remember what he was even supposed to be doing.

"Reid."

Great. Now he was hearing voices in his head. If he didn't already know that hallucinations were a symptom of lack of sleep, he would have been panicking about having a schizophrenic break and following in his mother's genetic footsteps. His hand mechanically reached up to scrub at his eyes and he blinked, trying to make the bullpen come back into focus and not make it look like he was in the mental agony he really was.

"Reid!"

Wow. His mind had some really realistic voices going on. It almost sounded like Morgan.

"REID!"

Okay, that wasn't in his head. His head snapped up and he blinked away the little black dots in his vision that made him feel like he was on a merry-go-round. Morgan had somehow managed to get up from his desk and made it to Reid's without the younger man's knowledge. He was now leaning over the books lining his desk and peering into the genius' eyes with concern-filled ones of his own.

"Hey kid, you alright? I've been calling for you, but you were kinda zoned out. I was just going to ask if you wanted to come over for dinner with me and Garcia and Prentiss. They already left but I was waiting for you to finish up what you were working on."

Reid squinted in confusion. When he allowed his eyes to travel over the rest of the bullpen, he realized that it was indeed empty aside from Morgan and himself. The lights had been lowered and all of the office doors were wide open aside from Rossi's, whose was still shut with the lights all on.

"I…" he swallowed and rapidly blinked once again. He needed to tell Morgan that he couldn't. He had to work on the map so the team in Phoenix could do their job. He couldn't let them down just because he was tired.

Morgan's eyes widened with concern and his features softened slightly at Reid's obvious struggle. "Re-Spencer," he said quietly, carefully setting a hand on the kid's shoulder, being taken by surprised when he didn't flinch or shy away. "I mean this as a friend. You look like shit, man. Tell me what's going on."

Spencer swallowed again, trying to wet his tongue enough to speak and not have his mouth feel like it was coated in cotton. His desk was swimming dangerously in his vision and the black dots were back with a vengeance. He felt himself sway to the side and knew he couldn't stop. His brain felt like it was collapsing in on itself and he was sure his entire body was just calling it quits.

"What the-" Morgan said aloud, but easily caught Reid as he slumped out of his desk chair. The last thing Spencer heard before the darkness totally consumed him was Morgan practically screaming for Rossi.

0000

The first thing Spencer thought when he woke up was _What the hell happened_?

He blinked sluggishly and scrubbed at his eyes, hoping somewhere in his subconscious that the action didn't make him look too much like a toddler. He sleepily rolled over on the couch-

Wait, when had he gotten on a couch?

He pushed himself up so quickly that it made his head spin. He thought he was going to tumble right off the couch, but suddenly there was a warm pair of hands on his shoulders, keeping him in place. He blinked up at the owner of the hands and found Morgan's face staring back at him, his features riddled with concern. It took him a moment to gaze around and finally realize he was laying on the couch in Rossi's office with said man hovering only a few feet away.

He squinted at them both. "What-" his voice came out raspy and hoarse, causing Morgan to cringe and Rossi to offer him a glass of water that had seemingly been sitting there for that exact purpose. Once he had drained the glass, and realized how freaking thirsty he had been, he tried again.

"What happened?"

"You passed out, kid," Morgan supplied oh so helpfully, perching himself in a chair across from him.

Reid's eyes widened and his cheeks lit up with embarrassment. He had freaking passed out! In the middle of the BAU no less! God, no wonder everyone thought he couldn't do his job.

He scrambled to get up, fumbling momentarily with the blanket over his legs he hadn't even noticed before. "Take it easy, kiddo," Rossi said gently, pushing him back down in the same manner Morgan had. The Italian then proceeded to pull an energy bar out of his desk and offered it to the young doctor. "Here, eat this."

He _was_ hungry, but the thought of eating made his stomach roll in a horrible manner at the same time. He wrinkled his nose up and shook his head, turning his gaze down to his lap.

Rossi frowned and unwrapped it, all but shoving it into Spencer's nervous hands. "Eat it Spencer. Your blood sugar is probably dangerously low, and you need the strength. If you don't eat it, well I'm sure that between Morgan and I, we can make you."

This was enough to get Reid to take the offered food with fumbling hands and take a small, cautious bite. He never knew how amazing an energy bar could taste until he practically had to hold back a satisfied moan. He really had been hungry. When his stomach didn't immediately rebel and send the much-needed food back up, he took another bite.

The two other agents watched him carefully, waiting until he had completely finished the bar and drank another glass of water before saying anything.

"What the hell happened Reid?" Morgan demanded. His face made him look like he was upset with the genius, but his eyes conveyed anything but. Spencer ducked his head under the scrutiny and began to play with a string attached to the blanket.

"Spencer," Rossi tried. The elder man gently but firmly tilted his face up and gazed into his eyes. "Answer Morgan please."

Spencer sighed. "I'm sure my blood sugar just dropped too low like you said. I haven't eaten all day."

"Just all day, huh? How come you devoured that bar like you hadn't eaten in days then?" Morgan demanded. Wincing under the gaze, Spencer averted his eyes momentarily.

"I-I guess I just got distracted. It might h-have been longer, but I'm not exactly sure. I mean I had so much paperwork to finish today and I stayed up all night last night to the j-journals read and…I'm tired." As he finished his small spiel, he hung his head with a tired, defeated sigh. He didn't want to see the looks Rossi and Morgan were surely giving him and exchanging with each other. He knew he was childish. He didn't need to see their faces for proof.

A firm hand was placed on his shoulder, different from before, and momentarily looked up to see Rossi sitting beside him.

"That's alright, _bambino_ ," he said softly, "Everyone gets tired. You work so hard, and from the sound of it, don't give yourself enough breaks. You deserve it."

"Kid," Morgan tried, "You don't need to prove anything. We already know how hard you work; we don't need you to nearly kill yourself from exhaustion to prove it. You have got to quit pushing yourself so hard, though, because you see how far it got you this time."

Reid just shrugged, his exhaustion catching up with him once again. Seeing this, Rossi gently pulled him up and supported him.

"Alright kid, you're coming home with me to get some rest. I'll call Hotch and let him know you won't be coming in for a few days." The Italian began to steer him out the door, and although everything in him was screaming to pull away, to show them that he wasn't a kid and could handle himself, he was too tired. Not to mention it was kind of nice to not be in control for once.

As he settled into Rossi' warm car and rested his head against the cool window, his eyes beginning to drift closed, he thought that maybe taking a break wouldn't be so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Note:  
> There is a poll regarding Safe and Sound over on my Fanfiction.net account. I'm under the same username. Please go check it out. The more input, the better!


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